Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I want to say a few words about Cork Airport. This is an airport that is set to be closed for a period of ten weeks from 12 September to 22 November, as repairs are being made to the main runway. Workers are facing a very difficult situation. These are workers in Aer Lingus, Swissport, OCS and in other airport workplaces. For example, Aer Lingus plans to temporarily lay off 200 workers, who will be forced to go on the dole and will not be paid by the company for that time or kept on the books. They have been kept on the books all through the pandemic but they are to be taken off the books for this period of ten weeks. Why is that? There is growing concern and fears among the workforce for their jobs and as to whether they will have a job to come back to. There are also concerns about their wages and conditions. It is the case that the company cannot legally change the wages and conditions of the workers while they have been temporarily laid off. Aer Lingus, however, has form. It is trying to organise a race to the bottom and to drive down wages and conditions and will try to exploit any situation to try to gain leverage here. Workers have had proposals put in front of them recently and I can inform Aer Lingus that they are not going to be accepted.

They include a five-year pay freeze, pay cuts, new starting rates of €12.30 an hour and changes to both the sick pay scheme and duty allowances - needless to say, in the wrong direction. Will Aer Lingus use the ten-week shutdown to increase the pressure on the workers to accept these changes to conditions? It would be naive for anyone to think it would do otherwise.

Aer Lingus is a company in receipt of state aid. At the moment, for example, it is in receipt of the employment wage subsidy scheme and other supports. The State should not give Aer Lingus or the other companies I mentioned that are based at Cork Airport a blank cheque. Conditions should be attached to the moneys these companies receive, and one of those conditions should be that those workers will not be laid off, temporarily or otherwise, and that they will be left on the books in the way they have been throughout the pandemic.

There is silence from both the Minister of State and senior Ministers on the issue. The Government says this is a matter for the company and it is not prepared to interfere with the dealings of a private company. That is not good enough. Working people have kept this country going throughout the pandemic. They deserve to be treated with fairness and respect. Laying off these workers for a period of ten weeks, and increasing the pressure on them in regard to their jobs, wages and conditions, is not acceptable. It should not be acceptable to the Government and it is certainly not acceptable to me or to the workers at Cork Airport.

This issue is not going to go away. As we come closer to that deadline date, pressure will increase on the Government and on local Government Deputies, and I want it to be increased to the maximum extent possible. There needs to be fair play and justice for the Cork Airport workers and that means they must be kept on the books and not temporarily laid off. What is the Government going to do about it?

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